Facebook to host The New York Times content on its app

The New York Times reported the paper will give up some of its website traffic to the social-media giant, a move that some media observers call a power shift in digital publishing landscape. Under the proposed deal, Facebook would host content from prominent news outlets such as The Times, National Geographic and BuzzFeed directly inside the Facebook app.

“What’s popular in social media tends to be big, national news, happy, engaging stories, whimsical stories,” says Anatoliy Gruzd, director of the social media lab at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management. “If the focus is only on creating what’s popular for social media, that kills diversity of news.”